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Bush Wants Right to ISP Customer Data
bryan8m writes "Wired is reporting that the Bush administration wants back the ability to make ISPs turn over information on their customers. The U.S. Court of Appeals is handling the case and of course the feds want to hide details of it from the public. The law giving the government the power to seize communications records from 1986 was strengthened in 2001 by the Patriot Act and struck down after the ACLU challenged it."
When did the Bush administration become concerned about legality? Their previous stances on issues including torture, sovereign right of nations, and the role of Article 2 power has been done without discussing it with anyone.
Now all of the sudden they are getting a read from the courts?
Fucking facists.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
The most important thing is to make sure that with any additional powers granted there is enough oversight from a disinterested third party to insure said powers are used only within their intended scope for their intended purpose.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
...when he gives our country his data about why our men and women in uniform are *still* dying in Iraq while Bin Laden is still at large.
and of course the feds want to hide details of it from the public
I have read of this before, but it is very strange that in a democracy (?) laws for the popluation can be discussed/made by not letting the population know about them.
Does'nt this seem *too* close to a dictatorship - not that the US is one, but it increasingly is seeming that certain aspects are going in that direction
on the contrary, Bush is convinced there is .... and he's gonna make sure that damned sleigh gets searched by the bozos at TSA each and every time
Even worse are the laws about what a person can bring on a flight that can't even be discussed.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
It's not about getting information on terrorists when they email each other.
It's about getting blackmail data on government officials to force them to do what the Administration wants.
...that no one will want to live here anymore.
Combine the fact that EVERYTHING is terrorism--copyright violations, every hacker etc. with this wonderful bit of super surveillance and how long before GNU/Linux is defined as an instrument of terrorism? Or until all of our tools become illegal in the name of the Fatherland? Begun the Clone Wars have.
I think a lot of people would be honest politicians if they could just get elected into office.
I'm not a bush basher generally. I'm not totally against the RIAA and MPAA.
But I must say, that this initiative is truely diabolical. My freedoms to surf the internet privately is clearly being breached here.
Are we going to see them applying the same interpretationist polcies that they use on television to the internet. I mean whos to say what constituits a "terrorist" website?
Goodbye my friends. I think 1984 has truely, and finally come alive, and its time for some of us to go underground.
Execute order 66
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
wait I don't think this is related to the RIAA actually I'm not sure...sorry
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
A man who can barely hold his own while giving a speech is now telling ISP's to turn information over. That makes a lot of sense.
Does'nt this seem *too* close to a dictatorship
Hell yeah, it does.
not that the US is one, b
Give it a little more time... These things don't happen overnight.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
the, "if you've got nothing to hide, why worry?" argument will probably win this one. but guys, c'mon. This descision will quash terrorism... don't you see...?
sudo killall humans
Yer all a bunch of commie pinko liberal America-haters. Our President is doing the BEST HE CAN to protect us from terrorism, and he NEEDS these powers.
I'm so glad that the "keep-the-government-out-of-people's-lives" party is in power.
After a quick browsing of the ISP records they could know a lot about us... It seems that you have been living two lives. In one life, you are Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes and you help your land lady carry out her garbage. In the other you are an annoying slashdot troll under the alias "Anonymous Coward" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for, including extreme comparisons of the Bush administration to fictional works such as The Matrix or 1984. One of these lives has a future... In all seriousness, though, I can't see how giving the government access to ISP records is going to beneficial to the people. Guess the Department of Homeland Security is getting bored and needs something to do.
Now they say its about fighting terrorism but doesnt this just open the door for them to do it for anything... as long as they add terrorism before or after it.
Seriously, if things keep on going on the way they are, I can see a lot of personals like this popping up:
"Single, white 22-year old Canadian male willing to `marry' American female fleeing fascist regime. Must be intelligent and conversational. Preferably aged 19-25, ethnicity unimportant."
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Does'nt this seem *too* close to a dictatorship - not that the US is one, but it increasingly is seeming that certain aspects are going in that direction
Let's wait and see what happens with the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Yes, our Presidents are limited to 2 terms, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if something arose in early '08 that prompted the Executive and Legislative branches to try and keep Bush in office.
Paranoid? Perhaps.
--- We are not in the 8th dimension. We are over New Jersey.
It looks more like a plutocracy with the wealth and power being concentrated in the top few percent of the population. The only direction now is down into despotism.
Wow talk about a mis-leading head line. If you read the article in Wired it says congress is debating this. This article just starts off biased and just gets worse fromt here. It is obviouse where the writer stands on this issue and what side of the political fense the writer stands on, but last time I checked the Patiot Act didn't pass with a narrow margin and it doesn't look like it is going to pass with a narrow margin again this time.
So for all you liberal's out there that say my guy would never vote for this, and Bush is evil because he did. Check the vote records for this back in 2001. It's all posted on the Library of Congress website.
In some ways it's worse than a dictatorship, if you think about it. Most people in nasty dictatorships have an all-to-clear a picture of exactly what kind of behaviors will get them 'disappeared.' It's not a guarantee or anything (you may be a government-critic's brother, for instance), but at least you have a sense of your position on the terrain.
In the United States the law is so hopelessly complex, the enforcement so arbitrary, and adherence to the concept of checks and balances is such a farce that very few people are entirely sure of the legality of all their actions. Or what the consequences would be. We have developed a culture of lawyers for precisely this purpose - we walk on pins and needles hoping to God we aren't crossing some local, state, or federal ordinance without realizing it.
To live in the United States without having a law degree or the money to employ someone with one full-time is to be a second-class citizen.
--Ryv
How did we re-elect this fuck?
FUCK!!!!
Guess we have to wait for the apocalypse for any real change..
In my opinion it is worse than you say.
Here are reviews of 35 books and 3 movies that discuss how bad it really is: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Background information: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. The U.S. government declared war on Arabs long before there was Arab terrorism against the U.S.: New York Governor Pataki's statements are equivalent to a declaration of war.
The U.S. government is bankrupt. The value of the U.S. dollar is dropping fast because the Bush administration is rapidly borrowing money. Who is doing the borrowing? These people: U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party. If you are a U.S. citizen, you owe: $26,289.01, even if you are only 1 year old.
The US is so democratic its democratised itself into a dictatorship...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
How would people react if the Bush, or any, administration claimed the right to be able to tap anyone's phone for any reason?
From the article:
The legal filing with the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New York comes amid a debate in Congress over renewal of the Patriot Act and whether to expand the FBI's power to seek records without the approval of a judge or grand jury.
And will they also seek the entitlement to search domestic residences without a warrant approved by an authority figure? Would I be far off in this seeming to be about the same? For those who lost their short term memory, and those who like repetition:
without the approval or a judge or grand jury
How do you respect a law like that?
Congress creates the bills, the President merely signs them into law.
Where is all the uproar about the Congressmen who voted for these laws? I see plenty of anti-Bush sentiment here, but where's the outrage towards *your* representatives who approve of this?
Get angry all you want at the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, but don't give a free pass to the occupants of both the Hart and Russell Senate Office Buildings, they typically stick around a lot longer than a President.
I know I'll sleep well tonight.
Ok, customer data from ISPs. I own a (small) WISP, and the government isn't going to get anything useful from me, because I don't KEEP anything useful. My customers all get DHCP addresses, I don't keep squid cache logs, and my mail logs get flushed after a week. So I get a subpoena for my records: I'll be happy to give you a few hundred megs on a CD of my last weeks' worth of mail logs. Enjoy them.
The anti-Bush crowd just trolls for stuff to get all worked up about. This is about as effective as passing a law that everything written in the sand below the high-tide line is fair game for the guv'mint to use against you. No ISP has the capacity or the desire to keep secret records of every web-site visit, and every inbound and outbound email for every customer.
I'm going to find something useful to stress about.
You've been watching too much Star Wars ;-)
Seriously though, they'll just bring in another puppet to replace Bush, and keep Cheney, Wolfovich(sp?) and all pulling the strings behind the scenes.
In Argentina we've recently had a similar law proposal. Fortunately there was enough people who cared to at least stop it for a while. One of the many rumours we had flying around at that time was that the Bush administration was behind all that as part of a deal to relieve some of the pressure regarding our current economical problems.
I personally believe that these are just rumors... but I can't stop to notice that we were in exactly the same situation just two months ago.
What the hell is going on with our so called democracies? Do they really deserve that name?
diegoT
Yes, but you do live right next door to it. And we have lots of guns. I for one would be on edge if my next door gun crazy neighbor started doing scary stuff.
As Bush continues to ignore the constitution in favor of increasing his own executive power, in his ever bolder attempts to convert the executive manager position of President into a neo-kingship, he will find that more and more people see through his ploy and begin to unite against him. It will finally be when his hubris blinds him to the true source of his power and he attempts to wield his power over a signifigant subset of the wealthy that he will find himself and his tribe of neoconservatives on a long trip down a short pier. The surest way to destroy an empire is to remove its head before succession has been settled. Impeachment of DeLay and continued defeats of Frist politically will create a struggle for succession that could tear apart the fiscal conservative-social conservative coalition that has brought Red shirts to power. The key to long term success is to demand a new movement to unprecedented levels of open government and government oversight. Removing the back room deal aspect of politicing can prevent things like Bush spying on your web browsing from ever being an issue.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
I am writing this letter rather reluctantly. I do not wish to begin an incendiary debate about Mrs. Micheal Simms's perceptions. However, Mrs. Simms has recently made a few statements that I find disturbing to such a degree that I cannot remain silent. As a preliminary, I want to think outside the box. Her policies may sound comfortable and simple, but it must not be forgotten that if the past is any indication of the future, she will once again attempt to send the wrong message to children. I have often maintained that reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Unfortunately, when dealing with Mrs. Simms and her rank-and-file followers, that claim assumes facts not in evidence. So let me claim instead that there are few certainties in life. I have counted only three: death, taxes, and Mrs. Simms doing some clumsy thing every few weeks.
Her "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude is mudslinging, because it leaves no room for compromise. Mrs. Simms's premise (that the boogeyman is going to get us if we don't agree to her demands) is her morality disguised as pretended neutrality. Mrs. Simms uses this disguised morality to support her ethics, thereby making her argument self-refuting. It doesn't do us much good to become angry and wave our arms and shout about the evils of her allegations in general terms. If we want other people to agree with us and join forces with us, then we must take away as many of her opportunities for mischief as possible.
I have a New Year's resolution for Mrs. Simms: She should pick up a book before she jumps to the churlish conclusion that the cure for evil is more evil. During the first half of the 20th century, cynicism could have been practically identified with onanism. Today, it is not so clear who can properly be called acrimonious foolish-types. I wish that some of her gofers would ask themselves, "Why am I helping her redefine unbridled self-indulgence as a virtue, as the ultimate test of personal freedom?" Others may disagree, but I feel that Mrs. Simms's annoying manifestos declare that headstrong ruffians have dramatically lower incidences of cancer, heart attacks, heart disease, and many other illnesses than the rest of us. Mrs. Simms then blames us for that. Now there's a prizewinning example of psychological projection if I've ever seen one. That's all I have time now to write. If you want to get more insight into Mrs. Micheal Simms's mentality, though, then study the details of her tracts. Try to see the big picture: It will decidedly amaze you. It will take your breath away. And it will convince you that ignoring this letter can be considered an admission of guilt on Mrs. Simms's part.
Once the fascists are recognized beneath their lying masks (like NaZis - National Socialists), people are quick to call them what they are. After all the Bush abuse of the people for the benefit of his corporate government, there's no going back to his "man of the people" scam.
--
make install -not war
You dumb shit.
You're obviously a republican, and you're making excuses for this by bringing up what Clinton did in office. However, Clinton is fucking history. He's out of office. It doesn't matter. This dickhead is in office RIGHT NOW, fucking up your country, and you're whining "well Clinton was bad too". Grow a fucking brain.
What do I think? All I know is that it certainly feels like whatever any corporation wants they get, but whatever I want (and others like me want), even when it's constitutional freedoms, I don't get it because it would inconvenience some corporation. So I'd have to say we're well down that road to control by corporations and I wouldn't be surprised to see congress and the courts dissolved and the presidency turned into a dictatorship in my lifetime.
http://www.marryanamerican.ca/
You have been at war since the involvement in Korea, and that one did not end.
Ah, this undeclared war against a non state enemy you mean? this war on drugs? or oh wait, it was terrorism, or what? copyright violators?
Deciding you are at war comes with many consequences. If you argue that the USA is at war, that implicitly also means your enemy is a party you can be at war with. This means you cannot deny the rules and treaties that govern war to them. Come back when the people in the US government understand this instead of calling things 'war' whenever it comes in handy, without taking the consequences.
Can we just get to full blown fascism already?
Most Americans won't care, actually most of them will welcome it.
Seriously, this slowly eroding our rights stuff is just taking forever, let's just get it over with...
So we can keep our democracy while creating new ones? Dumbass, if Bush really cared about terrorism, Bin Ladin would have been captured or killed by now. This is just a power grab from the idiots that voted this fool into office.
What you say!!
diegoT
What everyone needs is a proper leader, someone who takes whatever the hell they want, whatever the cost in dollars, jobs, international respect, or the blood of the citizens. Bush might not be that man, but Cheney is, so what's the difference?
This is exactly like the beef industry being regulated by PETA - democracy was a crackpot idea to begin with, and we'd all be better off in a dictatorship. /asshat
In the United States the law is so hopelessly complex, the enforcement so arbitrary, and adherence to the concept of checks and balances is such a farce that very few people are entirely sure of the legality of all their actions. Or what the consequences would be. Actually it's getting easier to figure it out, all you have to ask is "Will this make some corporation mad?" if the answer is yes then it's probably against the law or soon will be. Also the consequences will be quite dire, you'd be better off murdering someone. To live in the United States without having a law degree or the money to employ someone with one full-time is to be a second-class citizen. Frankly I think we're below second-class, we're tolerated as necessary only because we buy the products the corporations make. If it wasn't for that we'd probably be in deep shit.
What? You still haven't seen this? Osama had nothing to do with US policy in Iraq, except the "fixing the intelligence to suit the policy" part. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936 07,00.html
Sigh... here goes another moonbat delusional hatefest on Slashdot.
Mocking Republicans for doing the same stuff that Democrats were demonized for is pure sport for Libertarians.
The sooner people realize that there is a fractional difference between the two, the sooner we can return to true competition in politics.
Republicans=Democrats who used to smoke pot until their kids started stealing their stash.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
As they look over the world's painful panorama of war and terror, some people conclude that it is too late, that no amount of information or activity could possibly stop this insanity. But those who take that pessimistic view understand neither Slashdot nor its current rung on the ladder to total power. Unless you share my view that I indeed hope that Slashdot's punishment fits its crime, there's no need for you to hear me further. According to the laws of probability, I feel that Slashdot has insulted everyone with even the slightest moral commitment. It obviously has none, or it wouldn't use antidisestablishmentarianism as a more destructive form of diabolism.
Should we blindly trust such superficial, gruesome boneheads? Slashdot's bedfellows insist that "Slashdot is a perpetual victim of injustice." First off, that's a lousy sentence. If they had written that Slashdot's hariolations are about as useful to society as a hundred deutsche marks were in 1923 Germany, then that quote would have had more validity. As it stands, Slashdot somehow manages to maintain a straight face when saying that we have no reason to be fearful about the criminally violent trends in our society today and over the past ten to fifteen years. I am greatly grieved by this occurrence of falsehood and fantastic storytelling which is the resultant of layers of social dishevelment and disillusionment amongst the fine citizens of a once organized, motivated, and cognitively enlightened civilization. Slashdot's propositions will have consequences -- very serious consequences. And we ought to begin doing something about that. Slashdot's artifices are a hotbed of corporatism. But you knew that already. So let me add that Slashdot keeps saying that freedom must be abolished in order for people to be more secure and comfortable. For some reason, Slashdot's forces actually believe this nonsense.
Like a lion after tasting the blood of human victims, Slashdot will feed us ever-larger doses of its lies and crackpot assumptions. Please let me explain that ignorance is bliss. This may be why Slashdot's cringers are generally all smiles. The long and short of it is that Slashdot struts like a god on Mount Olympus, looking down on us mortals below. In view of that, it is not surprising that I don't need to tell you that in Slashdot's line of business, you don't need to know what you're talking about. That should be self-evident. What is less evident is that Slashdot's factotums all look like Slashdot, think like Slashdot, act like Slashdot, and make widespread accusations and insinuations without having the facts to back them up, just like Slashdot does. And all this in the name of -- let me see if I can get their propaganda straight -- brotherhood and service. Ha! If Slashdot were as bright as it thinks it is, it'd know that I receive a great deal of correspondence from people all over the world. And one of the things that impresses me about it is the massive number of people who realize that it shouldn't take a condescending cheap shot at a person that most insane gutter-dwellers will never be in a position to condescend to. That's just plain common sense. Of course, the people who appreciate its philippics are those who eagerly root up common sense, prominently hold it out, and decry it as poison with astonishing alacrity. Unfortunately, Slashdot's stubborn prognoses neglect to take one important factor into consideration: human nature. Common sense and scientific evidence agree: If we don't remove the Slashdot threat now, it will bite us in our backside as soon as our backs are turned.
Will the worst kinds of spineless mountebanks there are ever oppose our human vices wherever they may be found -- arrogance, hatred, jealousy, unfaithfulness, avarice, and so on? Don't bet on it. Pessimism is dangerous. Slashdot's self-centered version of it is doubly so. If I may be permitted to make an observation, when you tell Slashdot's emissaries that Slashdot's litanies are filled with a number of very clear-cut and blatant lies -- lies of both om
While I agree with most of what you are saying,I believe that Ruby Ridge took place when Bush 41 was in office. Summer of 92' I believe.
The data you're looking for is allready available on line. Have a look here and here for example
Here's the address that you can send your ISP info to: president@whitehouse.gov
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Freedom dies not from a bang from without, but rather incrementally from within. Dumbya is a threat to our liberties and freedoms... Perhaps the greatest threat that this country has ever faced in its 200+ year history.
Dumbya's path to fascism is clear. Create an atmosphere of fear. Then push for passage of Orwellian laws under threats that terrorists will destroy us if they are rejected. Finally, stuff the court system with justices who will rubber stamp his attacks on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The sad thing is that he's getting away with it so easily. I hope those who voted for this fraud are happy with the fact that they have likely doomed this country's future.
"This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp." -G. Orwell, 1984
Just start monitoring everything, by everyone.
Declare the entire population is under investigation, and just get rid of those pesky constitutional rules that protect our rights.
And this country isnt the only one heading this direction.. Moon base anyone?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Unlike past wars, this is one that isn't really going to end. The global war on terrorism's ultimate goal is to stop terrorist threats from attacking the United States.
No matter what we do, the threat will always be there, and as such, the war will continue to go on. Granted, a government should be granted special permissions during wartime, with the understanding that when the conflict is over the population can rest easy that things will return to normal.
Only now, any permissions granted to the government won't be temporary. We are setting ourselves up for a government that can violate the principals on which this nation was founded indefinitely.
I for one don't want to live in a country where the government can violate my privacy. I don't want to live in a country where at whim any action can redefined as "terrorist", and I could be labeled a criminal for doing nothing wrong. We've gone past the point where "only guilty people have to worry", and are approaching "innocent people have to worry too."
So kudos to the ACLU. Kudos to any person or group who wants to limit the powers of government. The war just isn't in Iraq, the war is here too. Like the war against terrorism, our domestic war is between those who value liberty and freedom above all else, and those who want to limit it.
The current administration may have the best of intentions, but I can see Bush saying "It is better that the rights of 1,000 innocent Americans should perish at the hands of their own government so that the rights of one American won't be taken by a terrorist."
The Internet is generally stupid
It will be so much fun to be all in this together now!
If people refuse to give information they will be probably taken to information retrieval.
It seems like Saddam has taken a consultant job for the Bush administration. Since we suck at fighting the revolution in the Middle East Saddam could be a great resource there also.
An Israeli website about the websites of designated terrorist organizations, and how their ISPs react: Internet Haganah
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Your IP address is not your "digits", in fact most of us get a new one every time we connect ot the network. Also, many of us have several. You're thinking about e-mail addresses, and if you think ECHELON or one of its successors aren't "reading" every e-mail you send right now, you aren't paranoid enough. Of course it's for "national security reasons" and thus has no civilian oversight.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Don't let the door hit you on the ass, liberal.
That is so true. It points up the obvious that Bush people are neocons and an insult to true conservatives. Bush backers are more fascist than conservative but fascist is a tough label to sell in Oklahoma. So they call themselves conservative.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
... you then have reason to be concerned about retailation....
So the more you know about those you screwed, the safer you feel in control...
No, what he's saying is 'it's not just Bush, and a bunch of political opportunists should stop trying to make it into a Democrat versus Republican thing.' Face it, it doesn't matter if you vote for the left or the right wing of the big mean buzzard if it's coming for you.
You might have a point, except that the Bush administration has repeatedly conspired to keep the truth from the American public, and to circumvent the Constitution when it suits them. Saddam Hussein doesn't have WMDs? Fine, we'll pick and choose intelligence to make it look like he does. While we're at it, we'll meet with Blair to discuss strategy for the war that Congress hasn't authorized. What, you tell me that Saddam Hussein hasn't done anything aggressive? Then we'll increase bombings to try and goad him into war.
The secretary of state, I think.
And here's the definition of terrorism. Think "direct action activism".
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
So because Democrats trample on our civil liberties, that exempts Bush from severe criticism for doing the same thing.
Can I have some of whatever you're drinking?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Assuming all of those Reindeer are shod similar to horses, that's gonna be a nightmare.
Sigh... here goes another moonbat delusional hatefest on Slashdot. Guess that's what happens when the majority of the audience is comprised of antisocial overmedicated middle school kiddies.
... ... ... ... ...
... ... ...
I find that people such as yourself.
Tend to ignore the actual issue.
And degrade yourself by
Talking about the miss-deeds of others
That have nothing to do w/ the topic at hand
Or you aim at character assassination
Which also has nothing to do w/ the topic at hand
So I'll sum it up in a manner that you may understand.
Fuck you
You self important
Poop flinging
Tree monkey.
While some of these opinions and ideas certainly strike a chord with me, the main question that I have to ask is: what can I do about this? Action is louder than words. I would like to know what options the average American citizen has in taking back our civil liberties. I hate to see our individual privacy being bled away by the greed of our government. The Constitution was drafted for a reason -- don't let it goto waste. On this note, I have the following observation: the (overwhelmingly) #1 goal of politicians is to get re-elected. As such, I've checked out some of these online projects (such as the now defunct opengov) and many of these are tattered with confusing relationships. I am curious to know if there are any projects out there that simplify (or at least organized more smart/intuitively) the relationship between politicians/policies/funding/etc. Lets get a meaningful discussion going on how we can present a more transparent view of the government to the general public and have them utilize this information to make a more informed choice. To borrow from an age old adage, "hit 'em where it hurts." Except this time, replace pocket with political re-election.
That was more of a joke then anything else.
Few of us will ever be allowed to leave the monitored areas.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Republicans suck!
On the other hand, I agree about congress.
catch 22 in action.
You can't handle the truth.
While some of these opinions and ideas certainly strike a chord with me, the main question that I have to ask is:
what can I do about this?
Action is louder than words. I would like to know what options the average American citizen has in taking back our civil liberties.
I hate to see our individual privacy being bled away by the greed of our government. The Constitution was drafted for a reason -- don't let it goto waste.
On this note, I have the following observation: the (overwhelmingly) #1 goal of politicians is to get re-elected. As such, I've checked out some of these online projects (such as the now defunct opengov) and many of these are tattered with confusing relationships. I am curious to know if there are any projects out there that simplify (or at least organized more smart/intuitively) the relationship between politicians/policies/funding/etc.
Lets get a meaningful discussion going on how we can present a more transparent view of the government to the general public and have them utilize this information to make a more informed choice.
To borrow from an age old adage, "hit 'em where it hurts." Except this time, replace pocket with political re-election.
I'm a Republican, and I hope you're right about that. Dammit.
Yeah, such a repressive gov't that you can buy (and wear) the anti bush black wristband advertised on this page.
Really, for all you American, stfu and be proud of being an American. God damn your whining and boo hooing makes me sick.
(Pentafecta noun: 2 more than a Trifecta)
Wow, that's a post for the books: Insightful, Funny, Troll, Flambait (and to some, Informative), all rolled into one! You, sir (or madam), are the master.
"The sooner people realize that there is a fractional difference between the two"
That's retarded. They may both be corrupt and inefficient at best but to say they are both basically the same is kinda stupid. They are far apart on many issues like Social Security, Healthcare, Gun Control, Church and State etc etc. In fact the wishlist for current Repubes and Dems could not be more different.
If you want to say they both suck then I won't argue, but fundementally they are very different and if anything the last 4 years has proven that beyond a doubt.
"The sooner people realize that there is a fractional difference between the two, the sooner we can return to true competition in politics."
That won't be happening. This country will go down in flames as a two party system before anything else is considered.
But that is what Lawyers are paid to do!/P.
Back in Dec 2000 he declared his desire to be The Dictator
photosMy Photostream
Yeah, fuck them and their protection of your rights. Then we won't have to listen to anonymous imbeciles like you here, because legally, you'll have been pre-identified, pre-approved, and pre-filtered.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
The courts and congress won't dissolve,
they'll become incorporated!
I guess hes still huntin for WMD
I have read of this before, but it is very strange that in a democracy (?) laws for the popluation can be discussed/made by not letting the population know about them.
Yes, I thought that was weird too. If the people aren't allowed to see the piece of paper saying what they can and can't do how can that piece of paper be enforced.
The obvious answer is that it can't. Ignorance is not a defence (well, actually it is, but if that could fly then lots of criminal and loads of civil trials would collapse pretty fast) but ignorance because you're not allowed to know?
Do the populace no longer have a say on what laws will be enforced on individual members to protect them as a group?
Of course not. Why? Because of the unending barrage of 'patriotism' which basically says 'your country is the most important thing in the world, even above your own life. If the leader of your country tells you that it will be good for the country for you to do something you must do it'. This is the single most dangerous mindset that people can have - [hypothetical situation] if everyone thought for themselves then they'd refuse to arrest someone under what are, to the person they're arresting, nonexistant laws, why would they do this? because the person above them would recognise that not arresting the 'criminal' was the right thing to do and wouldn't do anything about it, and nothing would be a done about that because the army would recognise that it was being misused and refuse to carry out orders to 'restore order' and the man at the top will suddenly realise that because he gives no reason for people to be loyal, he'll just be standing there talking to himself. Would it be right? yes. Would it result in anarchy? yes.
Remember, loyalty is the most dangerous thing in the world - loyalty to the government because they're the government is very dangerous.
Case in point: watch the 1am-2am episode of the latest edition of 24
FGD 135
You've seen this shit coming for 20 years. Its getting worse and worse. You people are good at bitching, but I don't see anyone doing anything about it, all you do is vote for Rich people's party A or Rich people's party B... DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. it's not going to be easy, but history shows us the alternatives.
most morons in the US that i can think of would allow such a search if presented the argument of 'if you have nothing to hide, why worry"
it has never made ANY sense to me as to why someone would willingly consent to a police search, but as i learned from my recent encounter, people really are too stupid to realize they have the right to say no.
Another reason why I am voting Libertarian in the next election
Though I don't vote straight party ticket I do vote for Libertarians. I've also voted for democrats, republicans, and those running on the Reform Party ticket as well as independents. I vote on the issues, which gets to be hard because a candidate may have the same position on one issue as I do but will have the opposite on another. So what may determine my vote is the big picture, whether they believe in a small and limited government and liberty.
FalconShould there be a Law?
We must end the tyrany of the current goverment. The majority of the state does not see, or want to see, how the land has fallen. We need instant change, to establish a better democratic union.
Unfortunatly that means revolt, using a well organized millitia. True reform cannot be accomplished anymore by the current system. All the current leaders are funded by the minipulators corrupt legal system.
I propose that we all unite under our banner, to free the nation, and end the oppression.
We need to spill the blood of the corrupt leaders. We need to write a new legal system, based on common laws. We change, and we need it now.
And in the End ol' Willy was right, lets kill all the lawyers; kill them tonight!"
The links in the parent comment are filled with facts, some of them from the U.S. government itself. How is that flamebait?
He is announcing to all the world that he wants to associate himself with neoliberal economics.
I don't know what you mean by saying I assoiciate with neoliberal economics, as far as I'm concerned there isn't much difference between it and neoconservative economics, both are for corporate aristocracy. Just as Thomas Jefferson was, I am wary of the corporate aristocracy and believe more people should own and run their own small business. At the same tyme I believe in a small and limited government, and liberty. I don't want to live in any dictatorship, either rightwing or leftwing.
Unless you just want to be sarcastic and don't care otherwise, you might point out what you think are problems on the issues.
FalconShould there be a Law?
even outside the us
and a real blast from the past
and let us not forget Bush's little bitch poodle
Time for the revolution then...
" It looks more like a plutocracy with the wealth and power being concentrated in the top few percent of the population. The only direction now is down into despotism."
If this is true, why do the wealthy pay most of the taxes? Because they are a minority. We are headed for socialism, because the average person wants the wealth of this minority, and democracy gives them that power.
Vote for Pedro
Sigh. It would be nice if people didn't mod posts according to political affiliation. There is nothing in the circumstances that makes the above poster a troll.
From wikipedia: "In the context of the Internet, a troll refers to a person who makes inflammatory or hostile comments, which by effect or design cause disruptions in discourse"
The parent post is hardly causing disruptions in discourse, indeed it represents the very crux of the discussion.
So let me get this straight, now people who believe they should actually have freedom and a government that doesn't suck ass, are below both Republicans and Democrats? I mean, thats what you're saying going around slapping a label like "Libertarian" on people just because they want their government to quit making up bullshit excuses to spend billions of dollars on war and spying on our own citizens. "Defending our Country" just isn't going to cut it when Iraq had sticks and stones, and oh yeah, one of their "scientists" had slime growing under their sink. Man, thats a whole WMD program right there, our country was clearly in imminent danger from those stinky mildew-wielding terrists.
what can I do about this?
How about join the Free State Project
FalconShould there be a Law?
Does Congress or Bush honestly believe that any terrorist, criminal of any kind doing serious shit or -- gasp -- someone using bittorrent to download lots of movies...are really going to do so from home or somewhere they could be tracked?
Hmmm...how tough is it to find an open hotspot either at the friendly neighborhood coffee shop or some bonehead down the street with the SSID of "linksys" and no security enabled. This is all about the feds being in a position to do wholesale tracking of people like you and I.
he was elected. norrowly, therefore he can put whatever policies he wants in place. If the laws are unconstituional than its the courts that we should be looking to, its their responsibility to strike down illegal practices by Government. Further its the congress whos job it is to draft and pass only constitutional laws (and if their not, we again turn to the courts).
Im concerned with what Bush does, but my real question is, why arnt the "activist judges" bush hates so much striking down this infingements on basic right. I, like most of you consider information through your ISP to be protected -- at least on the level that ISP's should not be forced to reveal info on EVERYONE which is against right to privacy.
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
If Bush didn't surround himself with yes-men by packing his cabinet with cronies and like-minded ideologues, perhaps there would be a meaningful distinction between "Justice Dept." and "Bush Administration." But as it is, there is not.
Let's wait and see what happens with the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Yes, our Presidents are limited to 2 terms, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if something arose in early '08 that prompted the Executive and Legislative branches to try and keep Bush in office.
Or maybe Bush just runs again in 2008 on the grounds that he wasn't actually elected in 2000?
Really, for all you American, stfu and be proud of being an American. God damn your whining and boo hooing makes me sick.
Yea, stop all that complaining and go to the gas chamber quietly.
FalconShould there be a Law?
of shit, and so is the Department of Homeland Safety. Bush needs to go back to getting subpoenas every time he needs to pinch one off.
The Patriot Act needs to go. It has outlived it's lifespan.
You know what's unfortunate here?
We live in a country founded by people who very much supported the idea of anonymity, of not needing to identify yourself if you choose not to, and that, so long as you don't do anything of a criminal nature, you should be free to *attempt* to live and act anonymously as best you're able to.
There has NEVER been any medium better-suited for the concept of anonymity than the internet. It takes substantial EFFORT to identify someone who does not want to be identified on the internet. Even without trying hard to stay anonymous, you're relatively unidentifiable just by not self-identifying yourself. We should all be praising this wonderful world we've created, full of aliases, nicknames, anonymous visitors, etc, and marvelling at the impressiveness of having created a virtual world where real people can communicate with anyone in the world without disclosing their identity. And WHERE ELSE could you ever DREAM of publicly criticizing your government in front of a GLOBAL audience?
I know our founding fathers would be marvelling at this. They'd no doubt defend it vigorously, as they did our physical country, a place where people could be free from oppression, "big brother," unnecessary and unreasonable invasions of privacy.
And yet we don't defend it. We seek to solve the "problem" of "how can we take this Wild West called the 'Internet' and identify and spy on everyone....ahem, so we can better fight terrorism, of course." It's "show me your papers" for the 21st century. We have something so good here, and yet year after year it's deteriorating as those who want absolute power and the legion of fools (voters) they convince to follow them try to dismantle it and bring "law and order" to the Internet.
And yes, your average American isn't going to care about any of this, because to most Americans "the Internet" is CNN.com, msnbc.com, corporationX.com, hallmark.com, nytimes.com, and yahoo/google.com. And all the miscellaneous sites they find while searching google -- the ones that make them say "I found this cute little website," speaking as if they just discovered buried treasure -- all those sites they find on google, they think of as if they're PART of google. Just like most of us can't wrap our heads around the sheer vastness of outer space, most people can't wrap their heads around the true vastness of the Internet. So they don't try. If Slashdot were to ever be mentioned on a TV news broadcast, the anchorman would probably refer to it as "an underground site on the Internet." These people think they're being "new age" because they get their news from nytimes.com instead of the printed New York Times. This despite the fact that, of the many wonderful things the Internet has brought to our world, unlimited variety, diversity, and depth of news coverage on a level playing field, is one of the most important advances the Internet made possible. But no, not to the mainstream public. It's just nytimes.com. As if that's all the Internet has to offer: an online version of all the crap you already consume like Lemmings offline.
So will the public care? No. Because they never appreciated the Internet anyway. And they have to identify themselves anyway in order to buy that new bathroom towel from BedBathandBeyond.com anwyway, so who cares about anonymity or privacy?
Peer to peer networks?
Are they trying to get information on file sharers?
Actually, I'm not going to leave. This country was founded on the principals of equality, liberty, and freedom. Principals that were fought for at the cost of many lives. If you think for one second that I'd rather leave this country then stay and do what I can to keep those principals from the hands of men and women who would use their power to jeopardize our basic rights, your deeply mistaken.
If the ACLU can fight and win the good fights, then that's great. But if ACLU lawyers are silenced, I think you're going to see a backlash that's not going to be pretty.
If you're satisfied to live in a country where individual freedoms and liberties can be stripped from you at the whim of a government official, I would suggest you should move. There's lots of countries out there that operate like that by default.
The Internet is generally stupid
Bravo!!! I applaud France for voting against the EU constitution. While I may believe there shoud be a united Europe I compleatly disagree with a constitution that has to be hundreds of pages long. A constitution should only need a few pages at most.
FalconShould there be a Law?
No they won't try anything so drastic.
Don't forget there's a certain governor of Florida being groomed now to carry on the legacy.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
By the guns in the hands of the people your taxes pay to enforce said law.
> The obvious answer is that it can't.
Incorrect. Persist in this delusion and you will find it corrected at several hundred feet per second.
> Ignorance is not a defence (well, actually it is, but if that could fly then lots of criminal and loads of civil trials would collapse pretty fast) but ignorance because you're not allowed to know? Do the populace no longer have a say on what laws will be enforced on individual members to protect them as a group?
Ignorance is not a defence. Ignorance because you're not allowed to know is also not a defence. And no, you do not have any such say.
What was your point again?
> [mumble, if governments were required to pass laws that the people could understand, anarchy would result]
>
> Remember, loyalty is the most dangerous thing in the world - loyalty to the government because they're the government is very dangerous.
The fact that questioning your superiors leads to anarchy is the reason that questioning your superiors is the most dangerous thing in the world. Do it if you like, but I, for one, have better things to do than stand in front of the tanks in Tienanmen Square.
Speaking of whom, do you know who's seeing the world through through his corneas today? Whose blood is pumped through his heart today? Whose alcohol is being metabolized by his liver today?
Other than the fact that they're three different people, neither do I. Thus endeth the lesson.
If you take the secretary of state's defenition of 'terrorism' and compare it to how Bush's administration is trying to get ISP customer data, you might find something shocking... (III) A violent attack upon an internationally protected person (as defined in section 1116(b)(4) of title 18, United States Code) or upon the liberty of such a person. hmmm... we're not willingly giving them our data (our privacy) (even though we may not all be internationaly protected, i'm sure some ISP customers are), and they're going behind the backs of the courts and demanding it... sounds like a violent attack on our right to privacy, which is a liberty we hold dear in this country... seems like the only thing keeping the Bush Administration from being a terrorist organization in this issue is the fact that the US government isn't a foriegn group... but i'm sure there's some outsourcing in the US Govt., so what's that mean?
so I went over to Wired, and I read the short article, and when I got to the end, I was thinking how some rabid Slashdotter would twist this into having to do with Microsoft. I couldn't figure anything out that makes any sense. So while your post is completely irrelevant, it's a pretty good attempt at a troll. You even managed to get a "5". Congrats!
This is why im alll for leaving the country and finding some small hole in the middle of euro , and watch t.v via sattilite and home school and private school over in europe , it may be a monarchy but at least they are honest about their tactics and 99% of the time they leave you alone.. and dont intrude on true personal freedoms (to my perception) Anyone wanna join and start a new country.. People With Brains Anonomous, or a new planet .. Planet BOB lol .. true Freeedom...unwired , and plugged in...
An open letter on this memorial day. A time to remember our countrymen and the sacrifices they made for our freedom. Consider the price of freedom, and how fleeting it is. What must be taken with mighty armies can be given away with the stroke of the pen...
I've read that congress is considering revisions to the Patriot Act, and that President Bush is pushing for more powers to intrude in secret into lives of Americans. Please don't let our nation go down this road. I am asking people to discuss this issue and contact your congress person and senator to let them know how you feel. Freedom is not free, it must fought for and held close dearly, in the statehouse and on the battlefield.
In America a battle is raging that is threatening our freedom in the name of terrorism. It used to be "drugs", then it was "the children", and now its "terrorists". The government doesn't care who the bogeyman is, it simply wants more power, and it will use any excuse possible to get it.
When the events of 9/11 occurred, everyone-- the politicians, the President, the newscasters, and the people everywhere-- said "We must go on with our lives, if we change who we are as a result of the trajedy then the terrorists have won..." I hate to say it then, because that's exactly what we did. We allowed our government to put in all these draconian measures that would have scared the pants off us if we had seen it in a hollywood movie on September 10th. We have fundamentally altered our country in response to what the terrorists did, and our freedom and liberty is at stake.
We are no longer as free as we were. We are no longer as kind to each other as before. We run around the world acting like the bully, and we've even lost the respect for ourselves-- our own moral compass and lamp of righteousness. We used to be the shining beacon of freedom and liberty for all the world to see. Now we're reviled and hated in many parts of the world and shunned by our friends and allies.
We've changed a lot since 9/11. Government agents can search your home and seize your property without anybody ever knowing what happened. They have even made talking about it a "national security" crime. These are things are supposed to happen in Cuba. These are things that happen in China. These are things that are supposed to happen only in the farthest, darkest, most oppressive corners of the world-- not in America, "the land of the free".
It has been said that people who give up their liberty for safety have neither. It would seem that since 9/11, Americans have looked away while lawmakers stripped away fundamental freedoms that are guaranteed to us under our constitution. Since the birth of this nation we have championed against tyranny, oppression, and the subjugation of humanity all around the world. What an irony that we must now remind ourselves of these very principles and warn our politicians to step lightly to avoid leading us into the abyss.
Step away from that edge! Guide us back into the light and liberty. America was great before, and shall be great again. All that is required is the wisdom and the courage to stand up and speak against what we all know is wrong. America has a mighty weapon, and its not our tanks, its not our ships, its not our weapons of mass destruction-- America's mightiest weaspon is ourselves. Our love for humanity, our reaching out to stop the oppressors of the world, our zest for life and our yearning to be free.
The terrorists who aim to defeat us can never win because they simply can't understand our spirit. But the politicians who govern us can defeat us. They are charged with protecting our spirit and keeping the beacon of liberty lit for all the generations that come. It is not the terrorists I fear. We have mighty armies and very smart people that will eventually defeat them, of this I am ce
Principals that were fought for at the cost of many lives.
Considering that the US military is designed to destroy and occupy entire countries, can you imagine what they'd do to the US, with a alrgely unarmed, and incredibly ignorant population? It'd be a bloothbath. You don't bring a Glock-9 to a Fuel-Air Bomb Party. I'm sorry, but if the shit goes donw, I'm gone. I'm not convinced that there's anything left worth saving.
Subnet, maybe. Or maybe non-USian subnets, if your of the paranoid ilk. I'm a subscriber, but not a frequent poster - if I posted frequently, I'd have to start worrying about karma, mod points, and trivial willy-waving shit like that...
/. poster from the current level of machine AI...
;-)
No screenshot, but it's the standard "image containing a string with background noise to defeat OCR" that you have to type in a textarea to confirm you're not a bot. There's a name for it, which I've never bothered to remember.
Slashdot seems to have started using it recently, possibly because there's precious few other ways of distinguishing the average
So, why do you ask about whats this anti-bot string stuff you have been seeing?
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Heh, even if the law doesn't pass there are other ways to get that info:
ISP Owner: "I'm sorry Mr President, but providing that data wouldn't be legal."
Bush: "Very well Mr ISP Owner, it's time for your bribe. You can either have the big pile of money, the washer and dryer where the lovely Mr Cheney is standing, or you can trade it all in for what's in this box!"
ISP Owner: "The box, the box!"
And I want a pony! Where's my pony?!
Ok, let's try to bring some solutions instead of just complaining. Let's say the ISPs are now forced to provide any and all info (contact, emails, visited websites, etc) on their customers to the govt when requested. What can we do then?
(Actually, who the hell ever felt secure and believed in any privacy when browsing?)
So, what can be done to preserve a certain amount of privacy and anonymity? Are there alternate networks being developped? Will we be forced to access the net through ISPs forever? Are there any good proxy services? Is the only option left to bounce through multiple compromised machines for one to exercise freedom to view whatever on the Net?
I'm curious. Any suggestions?
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
This has been struck down by our highest courts already. Bush thinks he is above the law but he is wrong. What a manipulative pathetic corrupt liar he is trying to push his extremist conservative agenda on us by trying to simply disregard the decisions of our courts altogether. It is shame to our country to have this guy as a president.
Prosperity leads to complacency, and complacency leads to tyranny. This is the summary formula for what has happened -- and will happen -- to the USA.
... leaving wealth and weapons to determine much of America's cultural direction.
As for original ideals, when citizens actually do know something about the US Constitution, they nevertheless ignore those sections they find inconvenient for their philosophy. Such piecemeal-ing of the Law of the Land simply means that there is no basis to the law in full practice
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
true, IIRC, every single member of Congress voted for the Patriot Act except one weirdo, Russ Feingold (D - Wisconsin).
Another member of congress voted against the PATROIT Act, Ron Paul. Here'an article by him in Counter Punch dated 26 July 2002:
Rep. Ron Paul: Monitor Thy Neighbor
Opposition to the Patriot Act, legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President last year, is growing. Americans are beginning to understand that many precious liberties have been put in jeopardy by the government's rush to enact new laws in the wake of September 11th. Federal law enforcement agencies now have broad authority to conduct secret, warrantless searches of homes; monitor phone and internet activity; access financial records; and undertake large-scale tracking of American citizens through huge databases. We're told this is necessary to fight the unending war on terror, but in truth the federal government has been seeking these powers for years. September 11th simply provided an excuse to accelerate the process and convince all of us to relinquish more and more of our privacy to the federal government...
I'd bet most people don't recall that when congress was "debating" the act Ralph Nader challenged congress to take a quiz on it saying he would donate, was it $10,000, to any charity the congressional member who passed it wanted the money to go and not one took him up on it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
What the hell is going on with our so called democracies? Do they really deserve that name?
Democracies? Where do you see those? In the increasingly globalist world, many of these so-called democracies are being completely undermined by highly mobile financial wealth (as opposed to material wealth), hence converting such societies into plutocracies. All manner of cultural icons are giving way to the steady but apparently irresistable force of mega-fiat MONEY. Paper and electrons are determining much of Humanity's fate, and THAT is just as silly as watching a city full of people bow in the direction of a truncated pyramid upon which people's hearts are ripped out in order to honor an imaginary giant snake with wings.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
MOD PARENT UP
+5 Insightful !!!
I'm out of mod points or I would up it myself.
It's ALL political, that's what politics is about.
Clinton did worse things than the Patriot Act
Slick Willie did worse than the PATRIOT Act? What was he did that was worse?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Please know that the PATRIOT Act does NOT allow secret searches
From, the top of the page you provided the link to:
It's true that the PATRIOT Act allows federal authorities to search without immediately notifying the subject. But rarely, and not without a warrant.
It does allow secrets searchs, notification is required later but the searchs are still secret when done.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If only the same were true for trolls you might have another way of getting attention besides posting flamebait on slashdot
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
That won't be happening. This country will go down in flames as a two party system before anything else is considered.
Spoken like a true Whig.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Bush really just wants to find out who has been posting the photoshopped pictures of Jenna to alt.porn.celebrities!
AMEM BROTHER!
Why? Because I haven't done anything wrong.
I bet a lot of Germans said that when NAZIs passed a lot of laws.
Falcon"Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." Benjamin Franklin
Should there be a Law?
What the hell is going on with our so called democracies? Do they really deserve that name?
No they don't, we live in a Republic. It even says so in the Constitution. "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..." Article 4, section 4 of the Constitution.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
According to these definitions I guess the US governemnt's actions in the 20th Century would constitute "terrorism" then.
(IV) An assassination.
(V) The use of any-
(a) biological agent, chemical agent, or *nuclear weapon* or device, or
(b) explosive, 4/ firearm, or other weapon or dangerous device (other than for mere personal monetary gain), with intent to endanger, directly or indirectly, the safety of one or more individuals or to cause substantial damage to property.
Really too bad though, because of the first part:
"(A) the organization is a foreign organization"
Guess that settles it.
Good thing we're number one in bio research. Er...
Yeah, right.
the President merely signs them into law
The president can also propose laws. Like Cheney's secret meetings at the White House to create a national energy bill.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That rings true except for one thing: The Military's blind obediance to orders has limits.
I suspect most American soldiers would risk court martials if the orders started comming down to open fire on innocent American civilians. There's quite a bit of training even on the grunt level in BCT on what an illegal order is. Though chances are, most of the mid-level officers wouldn't let the orders go down that far.
The Internet is generally stupid
Most of the people complaining about the Patriot Act/Bush voted for Kerry and are registered as Democrats.
It's not just democrats complaining, republicans have as well. Add Libertarians.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why do rednecks hate America?
I think it's funny whenever anyone calls for less government. How do you define this?
I use the COnstitution of the USA as my guideline. Get rid of all the agencies, departments, and offices not specifically authorized by the Constitution. Here's a directory of federal agencies, LSU Libraries Federal Agencies Directory, most of which aren't specifically authorized by the Constitution.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Goodbye my friends. I think 1984 has truely, and finally come alive, and its time for some of us to go underground."
Goodbye yourself. You all are like the "end of the world" people. Today is the "end of the world" wait for it...wait for it....oh shoot! OK Next year is the "end of the world". You all have been beating the "1984" drum everytime someone coughs that it has lost all meaning, and hence impact. When both "the end of the world" and "1984" does arrive. You all will not even notice it.
"one of their "scientists" had slime growing under their sink. Man, thats a whole WMD program right there, our country was clearly in imminent danger from those stinky mildew-wielding terrists"
This has to do with the US finding Weapons of Mass Disposal units doesn't it? They had to go in for sanitation reasons! What do you think Bush meant when he said he was going to "clean up the world"? It's all about the hygene, and any dictator we find not showering and living in a little rat infested hole, just isn't hygenic enough to run a country. I say, strip them down to the underpants and scrub them with some steel wool and Jif! Let's clean up Iraq!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
In some ways it's worse than a dictatorship, if you think about it. Most people in nasty dictatorships have an all-to-clear a picture of exactly what kind of behaviors will get them 'disappeared.'
I can understand your problem. Apparently you, like about 15% of Americans, have a problem distinguishing what could be considered good versus bad in regard to the war against Al Qaeda and its associates. I've prepared a short guide to help you past these difficulties.
Good Buying pie to take to church picknic
Bad Putting arsenic into pie at church picnic to impress Osama
Good Taking pictures of statue of Liberty to remember trip and show neighbors
Bad Taking picutres of Statue of Liberty to plan where to put bombs with rest of your cell
Good Using web mail to keep in touch with Grandma
Bad Using web mail to check if today is the day you strap on bombs for Martyrdom
Good Attending City Council meeting to speak up about bad roads
Bad Assassinating City Council
Good Donating money to the Girl Scouts
Bad Acting as front man for fake Islamic charity funneling money to Al Qaeda
Good Buying everyone a round of drinks
Bad Shooting everyone in the bar
Good Sight-seeing Japan
Bad Taking secret training in Pakistan to make war on Western infidels
Good Having a pen pal with whom you trade cultural and person observations for world peace
Bad Collecting secret information to make the next hijacking easier
Good Having a job to pay your bills
Bad Taking a job to get closer to a target for the next bombing attack
Good Attending a meeting to plan a demonstration (in favor of | against) American policy
Bad Meeting with the rest of the cell to plan how to block escape routes so more infidels die
Good Offering to take in a former convict from a half-way house to make a new life
Bad Using your home as a "safe house" to hide an ambush squad in route to their mission
Now, this might be a lot of deail, so you can boil it down to a fairly simple heuristic: If the activity contributes to violent attacks against America or Americans, it is almost certain to be a bad thing under the anti-terrorists laws.
Is this helping?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
>If this is true, why do the wealthy pay most of the taxes?
Because they make the most money? If the top 5% of earners make 80% of the income, why shouldn't they pay 80% of the taxes?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
yes they do. the actions an attitude of the bush administration was well known, 51% or whatever it was of the US voters voted him back in, hence this is all just democracy in practice, the opposing of the will of a majority on a minority, even when that majority is only a few people more. democracy has nothing to do with freedom, or liberty at all.
Well, only good thing I see about all this, is if these clowns keep their act up, we're not going to see any clone armies anytime soon...
ALTHOUGH, you never know... If Bush realized that he could fix conscription in the blink of an eye... 100 billion dollars govt. cloning and stem cell project.
I GAR-UN-TEE.
The two terms are "paleoconservatives" and "neoconservatives". The current crop of Bush supporters are generally "neoconservatives" -- PNAC fans. The conservatives that agree with Bush on social values (limiting stem cell research, partial-birth-abortions, condom education, etc), but disagree with him when it comes to expanding spending and his transfer of state rights (especially security and police-related) to the federal government) are called paleoconservatives, and while they may support Bush, you will probably hear griping from them.
Paleoconservatives are financially similar to libertarians (though not socially similar). Neoconservatives are pretty much exactly opposed to libertarians.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Kinda scary imho, but at the same time, I'm not worried. Why? Because I haven't done anything wrong.
Read 1984, which discusses this exact concept -- the very straightforward idea, that "people who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear, so it should be acceptable to monitor everything".
The problem with it is that this strategy leads an unstable system that can easily degrade into a very unpleasant system. If the government starts abusing the power against political opponents, and it's a felony to inform someone that they're being monitored. It allows the majority to enforce all of their values on the minority -- one reason our democracy works is because the ability of the majority to monitor and punish those who deviate from their views is limited for simple, technical reasons (right now, it's really impossible to monitor all transgressions). For example, most of the US is Christian. Would you want to be punished for views that do not fit with a Christian view? And if you were, history has told us (the Catholic church in the past, Soviet Russia, etc) that the ability to punish those with value deviations can be used to indoctrinate new members of the system with the same values, and thus perpetuate and spread ideology that is globally nonoptimal.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
"BS", not "FUD". "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" is a particular subcateogry of "BS" that does not apply here. Nobody is trying to alarm someone with vague accusations.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Have you ever looked up republic and democracy in the dictionary? They mean the same thing, Right wing radio (a less than ideal source of information) likes to say otherwise because republic sounds like republican.
Okay, you asked for it. Here's a raw, unvarnished look into the secret world of the neoconservative. This site has many other threads that will help you understand Bush supporters. Or at least be amused.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Please support your Local, State, and National ACLU
They need your small donation, and membership to fight for all of us. Even a small membership makes them all that more powerful a lobby and legal force.
http://www.aclu.org/
The American Civil Liberties Union - Who else is fighting for your civil rights, day in, day out, in America?
I am disappointed that you find the ACLU partisan.
Every single ACLU volunteer attorney and the staff personnel makes a point to be as non-partisan as possible. To serve with the ACLU means not to campaign or otherwise support partisan politics. They would be asked to leave if one becomes partisan to a political party. Why?, the ACLU is fighting for the more important things than who gets the reins.
Your civil liberties, individual and group are KEY to the democracy.
My point wasn't that this was legitimate. My point was that if you're looking for a precise definition of "terrorism" in a world where every moron is calling his enemy a "terrorist", it's usefull to exchange "terrorist" with "direct action activism", or "violent direct action activism". It fits the actions of groups like the IRA, ETA, Al Qaida and so on. It does not fit P2P file sharers, the present government of Japan, the Mormon Tabernackle Choir, etc.
And I don't think substantial property damage is legitimate activism either.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Judicorp Inc.
This is where networks like Tor become valuable. Unfortunately, so many sites (including Slashdot to my surprise) have deliberately broken the Tor network that it's becoming too much of a pain the ass to use.
The "war on drugs" has been a 60 year long global spy operation instigated by the West (mainly US/UK). It has been an effective cover story for supplying military choppers and other weapons to people such as the current leaders of Burma. The "war on terror" is simply an expansion of those efforts.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I decided to amuse myself by looking at the response to the recent Amnesty International report.
Here is my favourite quote, "Well, sometimes to defeat an enemy you must act like the enemy." I wanted to post a sarcastic reply about how one tells the difference between "us & them" but was asked to login, considering that this thread is all about the government snooping into ISP records I declined to join.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The federal government offloaded enormous debts and budgets onto the individual states years ago. And the states have since then been worst off and more or less bankrupt. Too bad the 'news' won't cover these topics.
So, if you include the catastrophic economic conditions of the individual states in the overall evaluation, then things are truly bad off. Largely, due to direct actions taken by the current administration.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I think the religeous right are a danger - they would be loyal until bush tried to outlaw godbothering
Even as much as I disliked President Clinton's personal issues, he was and is still Mr. President - and always will be in my house.
President Bush deserves this level of respect for the office, even if you do not understand his politics.
Come on folks, by dropping the Mr. President or President Bush, you nulify about 50% of those folks who voted for him.
I think there's a subtle difference, to do with who actually has the power to give power. From dictionary.com:
A democracy is "the common people, considered as the primary source of political power", or your basic one-man-one-vote system.
For example, in .uk, if someone wins the most votes in their constituency at an election, they represent that constituency in the next government (of course, as Churchill said, the best argument against democracy is a five-minute coversation with the average voter).
A republic, OTOH, is "a political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them".
Not being from .us I'm not entirely sure, but isn't it technically the electoral college who return representatives? If so, surely that qualifies as a "body of citizens"?
Now, I don't know if electoral college votes have ever been cast against the popular vote (or even if they can be), so I guess you've really got a demublic or a repocracy or something :-)
Neoliberal is European for neoconservative. In Europe, the liberals are traditionally the most market-oriented. In the US, it has been the conservatives (ie. the Republicans). Quite confusing.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
There are very few slashdot postings that I think deserve a "6". This is one.
If it comes to that, I sincerely hope that your soldiers will have more courage to refuse orders than German soldiers did under Hitler.
Because your administration will certainly follow the Nazis' example of creating laws first that will make those orders at least formally legal. Actually, one might consider the PATRIOT act a first step in that direction. See also
http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/actpat.htm
So following the law about illegal orders will not be sufficient, because that law will not exist anymore when it is needed. Instead, your soldiers might have to ignore the laws outright in order to preserve liberty.
C - the footgun of programming languages
I'm not sure what the top 5% pay, but the top 1% pay NO taxes.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
I say, strip them down to the underpants and scrub them with some steel wool and Jif!
Scrub 'em with steel wool and peanut butter? Does that have something to do with the new food pyramid?
tell Bush to hold out both hands, want in one and S**T in the other and see which fills up faster.
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
I am Christian, but I have to say that you hit the nail *exactly* on the head.
I cannot thank you enough for the insight. I just hope others begin to see these things for what they really are.
Jefferson's party, the Democrat-Republican party as we call it today was more main-stream conservative, if you want to think of it in todays terms. His party was even called Republican by most in his time, and was associated with a government run by a group of men, rather than the common citizens.
Seriously, these things can only go so far. Currently the governments keep getting away with it because they only directly attack minorities and the poor. But sooner or later they are going to annoy enough people that another revolution will start. Unfortunately I don't think that will happen until the west's economies collapse when China/India etc, realise they don't need us as much as we need them.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
yeah... if anything bad happens in your country, the US _MUST_ be behind it!
What the hell is going on with our so called democracies?
I just want to point out that I don't think any true "democracies" exist in the world. A true, direct democracy would mean that all government decisions would be made by a referendum. I forget the exact terminology, but I believe the US is some sort of "Republic," and Canada is a "Social Democracy" (meaning democracy be representatives). I'm not a political scientist, so please feel free to correct me.
"Democracy" simply means "majority rules." All decisions would be made by voting, and regardless of how nonsensical, racist, or unethical the result, the outcome would become law.
A true democracy would eventually devolve (not a typo) into an oppressive communist regime. Minority rights would be non-existent (remember that Lincoln was very unpopular due to his anti-slavery stance. If you'd left it up to the people, we'd still have slavery today), and the wealthy and innovative would leave in droves, since the "majority" (the middle and lower class) would decide that the rich (the minority) should be the only ones paying all the taxes. Once all the entrepreneurs and medium- to large-sized business owners have left, the government would have to take over to ensure that the services continued to be provided, resulting in a communist society.
Oh yeah, and I'd hope the nation never got into a war, because they'd probably vote to draft all the minorities into the (poorly funded) military, effectively resulting in ethnic cleansing.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
you ASKED for this! If you want true freedom and liberty, the Repukeicrats will just continue to eliminate it. The Libertarian Party is the only party that will restore your freedom and liberty to constitutional levels.
_ _______
So If you want change, vote straight Libertarian, The Party of principal!
_____________________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself.
Apparently there are moderators among that 15%.
The US is a republic, not a democracy.
(cough)Kent State(cough)
If our government was instituted to protect the life, liberty, and property - and out privacy can be considered property - then I would like the Bush administration to provide concrete examples of how passing out this information protects us. Everyone who buys into "Terrorism" as the excuse must have a very limited thinking span... that term alons is far too vague, and this reader can not correlate with any terrorist scenarios where these records would be of assistace. After all, we can't even protect our borders! (Well, that turned out to be an order for those paying attention). Who can provide concrete examples how turning over these millions of records will protect the American people? It appears there's more to gain for the white house, by giving them the ability to better protect themselves, am I wrong?
If our government was instituted to protect the life, liberty, and property - considering our privacy can be considered property - then I would like the Bush administration to provide concrete examples of how passing out this information protects us. Everyone who buys into "Terrorism" as the excuse must have a very limited thinking span... that term alone is far too vague, and this reader can not correlate with any terrorist scenarios where these records would be of assistace. After all, we can't even protect our borders! (Well, that turned out to be an order for those paying attention). Who can provide concrete examples how turning over these millions of records will protect the American people? It appears there's more to gain for the white house, by giving them the ability to better protect themselves, am I wrong?
Exactly why do you assume it's only liberals who oppose the PATRIOT act? There's at least a couple of republican congresscritters who do. It's by no means a straight party line as to who supports and opposes it.
Yep, exactly. Opposition to the PATRIOT Act is growing in conservative circles. Considering the opposition on both sides of the fence, I expect to see major changes to the Act, not this term, but probably the first term of the next president in office.
But that's just me. I could be wrong.
If our government was instituted to protect the life, liberty, and property - considering our privacy can be considered property - then I would like the Bush administration to provide concrete examples of how passing out this information protects us. Everyone who buys into "Terrorism" as the excuse must have a very limited thinking span... that term alone is far too vague, and this reader can not correlate with any terrorist scenarios where these records would be of assistance. After all, we can't even protect our borders! (Well, that turned out to be an order for those paying attention). Who can provide concrete examples how turning over these millions of records will protect the American people? It appears there's more to gain for the white house, by giving them the ability to better protect themselves, am I wrong?
As of 2001, the top 2.7% of the people make 23.9% of the money. And pay 41.3% of the taxes. According to the IRS.
Note that that includes people (families) making $200,000 or more per year (Adjusted Gross Income - not sure what that meant in the real world in 2001).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"current state of the US democracy" Yes, that's part of the problem. We've become very democracy like and just as Franklin said, democracys only last until the public decides it can vote largesse to itself from the public purse. See, we're supposed to be a -republic- but most of the voters over here can't keep that straight.
This is also why the two parties are functionally very similar. They spew out heated rhetoric on the importance of privatizing Social Security and increasing spending on (insert conservative pork here) or the importance of social spending and cutting back on the military but if you look through the smoke and flame of campaign rhetoric what are both parties searching for? More government.
The Dems were quiet about signing on to Patriot I and II but they're looking to control the output of your life just as much as the Reps. And in between the voters run from one pork dispenser to the other all to eager to "get while the gettin's good" not ever paying attention to the fact that the dispenser is hooked into -their- back pockets. So, up your federal witholding citizen, no need to pay attention to that April 15th bill. Just plug in to your local politicos' recommended daily allowance of face time and get worked up about the rhetorical farce du jour. That's right, there's no hose going into your wallet. That's just you doing your "fair share".
Would it be possible to setup a company that "resold" ISP services? I mean, rent a block of IPs, and a E/T1 line run some servers on it, running an SSL secured proxy or VPN concentrators, or some such. Rent said services to your friends.
;-)
If the ISP gets turned over, you may lose access, but your friends activities are still safe. It'll take a court order to get you to turn over those details, so everyone does okay out of it, don't they?
You could go on to have a network of these services with other similarly minded geeks, and create an ad-hoc not-quite-anonymous network immune from above-the-law tactics of your corrupt Western government
Umm, no. In 2001, the top 1% paid 29.1% of the income taxes.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I was just gonna point out that on a Dvorak keyboard layout the letters are side by side... (o->r and p->l)
*walks off mumbling softly*
Gravity Sucks
wtf deliberately broke the tor network? How exactly did Slashdot Deliberately do this? From what I understand, when articles posted on Slashdot are not blatent advertising grabs, they are posted because some people believe that they might be of interest to a larger community. As much as we joke about the slashdot effect, its because people are curious and interested that they visit... otherwise people would never read articles on slashdot they'd just flame each other about things they read into the title of the article while saying "While I have not RTFA..."
Please clarify what you mean by saying slashdot broke the Tor network.
Gravity Sucks
Interesting you should mention this. Did you know that Roosevelt discussed with Churchill the US strategy for WW2 before we entered that war?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
...after my passport had been stolen. You should worry when the ads read:
"Single, white 52-year old Canadian male willing to `marry' American female fleeing fascist regime. Must be intelligent and conversational. Preferably aged 19-25, ethnicity unimportant."
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't see either major U.S. party being particularly market-oriented.
Why the hell does everyone use the word "right" when they mean "ability" or "privilege"? Are they really trying to assert they have a right to every fucking thing in the world just because they want to?
Woops! Sorry, JIF is a cleaning product in my country. Made by Unilever :-)
Sorry for confusion. Of course, Peanut butter might make him think twice before becoming a tyrant again!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
When he pries it from my cold, dead hands.
-Heston
I think he was talking about ISP info.. right?
The Good Life
Yes. Absolutely. He ( and John Kerry ) were pushing the clipper chip for encryption. If you don't know the details, the short version is that the US Govt would have back door access to all encrypted communications. That wasn't a crisis because the press doesn't bother to cover fucking Democrats who lust for unrestrained government control. Thank GOD for John Ashcroft and other sensible people who saw the folly of the clipper chip. This would have been far beyond the measures of the Patriot Act. The point is that if you have "D" next to your name it's OK. If you have an "R" next to your name it's Orwellian. Wake up.
You forgot, we also make the products the corporations are selling to us.
The fucking image human-test is broken. Three times I have typed in exactly what it shows and been told I am not human. Take the damn thing off.
This is even better:
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 9 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
That covers a lot of ground and is open to a bunch of misinterpretations. For example, is spying considered part of the military that's specifically authorized, or is it something else? Are the ATF and FBI involved in regulating comerce, which is specifically authorized, or not?
The congress is specifically authorized, so as long as they're doing their jobs, they have the ability to creat a whole lot of government that isn't specifically authorized, but is nontheless constitutionally correct.
Get rid of the ATF and FBI? Yes! Include the Drug Czar and DEA. That will still leave us with the Federal Marshals and Secret Service. With intelligence, get rid of the new intelligence Czar, CIA, and NSA. The Defense department has the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, to collect intelligence. The different services have their own as well like Army Intelligence. I'll say it's appropiate for the State Department to collect intelligence as well. But especially now the Cold War is over I don't see the need for an independent intelligence agency which is a leftover from WWII and Allen Dulles' OSS.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Thanks for the link. I'll need so tyme to go through it all.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yes I know about the clipper chip, however Clinton was unsuccessful with it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Bug Me Not
Yeah, right.
President Palpatine is only trying to make peace. Bush, I ment Bush of course!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
We've gone past the point where "only guilty people have to worry", and are approaching "innocent people have to worry too."
So true. Vigilance is the price of freedom.
You guys need to organise. In Britain, No2ID have taken 9 months to build up to a significant membership, and that's under great leadership and the threat of an Orwellian Database that we're voting on in a fortnight.
This threat is global. It is well funded and supported by Blair, Bush and God knows who else behind the scenes.
Yes intentions count, but the clipper chip still isn't as bad as the PATRIOT Act. Or the new "Real ID Act". The current congress and admin are eroding liberty, states rights, and the seperation of power faster than Slick Willie did. And no I didn't vote for either Clinton or Bush, in 1992 I voted for Ron Paul, in 2000 for Harry Brown, and last year for Micheal Badnarik.I didn't list 1996 because I didn't vote that year as I was livng in a rehab house where I was undergoing therapy after an accident, but I had planned on voting for Harry Brown then too.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Responding only to number 1 in the parent post:
You said,
"Hearsay if you prefer. I agree that conflicts of interested abound. However, they are not completely avoidable, and I'm not convinced it's any worse than it has been in the past."
I'm guessing you didn't read any of the books, or even look at the reviews. Yet you seem to dismiss the major issues raised.
If you read the books, you will see many reputable people claiming that it is much worse than ever before.
Fact: it was impossible for anyone other than the authors of the Patriot Act to read it. There was no time.
That's no excuse. Business moves faster than government: and no sane businessman on earth signs a contract on behalf of his company without reading it first. Time is no excuse for not reading the fine print, period.
It was rammed through Congress at a time when questioning the content,
"Congress" is all the people that should have been doing the questioning. Bills can't be rammed through Congress without Congress's consent.
even if there was time to read it, would have been considered unamerican. Perhaps you'd like to forget that little detail.
I thought representative democracy was once also considered "American". Or have you forgotten that little detail?
The point is, if your representives, be they business, government, or the president of your bowling team sign you up for anything, much less something you don't want, without carefully reading the fine print, you should nail 'em to the wall for it. Sue 'em for criminal negligence, vote them out of power, but get rid of them if they're not doing their job right. If you don't, you deserve what you get.
--
AC
and I offer accounts to anyone living in the "freedom" USA.
There has to be an unlawful act. You shooting targets isn't unlawful, AFAICT. Also, you aren't intending to endanger anybody.
In many places, using a firearm in the furtherance of a crime is a seperate offence. You shooting targets isn't going to be covered by this. You're using a firearm, but there's no felony. However, if you burglarize a home, and are caught with a loaded weapon, your penalty would be higher than if you were caught unarmed.
When it comes to indirect endangerment, I'm not quite sure what the difference to direct endangerment is supposed to be. I would guess that a tort/liablity lawyer or a criminal lawyer would have a good understanding of this.
It could be using a weapon in a plot to endanger people, where the weapons themselves are not the danger. For example, shooting at a pile of snow to start an avalanche? Or shooting the tires of fire engines to stop them from responding to fires?
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Or it's just that the two words mean the same thing. The diffence is at best "subtle", but both words are still equally accurate descriptions of the US political system. I will concede that the strict definition democracy does not explicitly state the implication of representation, while the strict definition of republic does, however this "subtle difference" is hardly poignant to the discussion in the current thread. The point is that in any form of represtative government, especially one in a state of security paranoia, it is entirely plausable for laws to be forged without the knowledge of the governed. The germane parts of the definition is that "power is derived from the consent of the governed", not executed on their behalf. But regardless, I agree that it is wrong, and outside the intended meaning of the US constitution. Benjamin Franklin was fond of saying that without free and open government, tyranny is inevitable. Of course he where alive today, he would be in considered a terrorist. The electoral college only returns the president, however the members are supposed to (but not oblicated to) vote in the manner polled by his/her state. Once vote in ~(550 x 230years) broke with tradition and voted agaist the way the state polled. But this is a tangential subject. The idea the the US is not a democracy is right wing propaganda. I used to buy into that line of crap, before I started finding sources of political information other than Rush Limbough and Shawn Hannity whose purpose is not information, but marketing. BTW, thanks for forcing me to take to deep look at the poli-sci view of the two definitions.